Words of appreciation

SARA ARNATSIAQ

Two Nunavummiut became the first recipients of the Government of Nunavut’s Inuktitut/Inuinnaqtun Language Awards during Inuktitut Uqauttin 2003.

Eelee Higgins of Iqaluit received the Inuktitut Language Award for her work in promoting and developing Inuktitut with her students at Joamie School.

Higgins, who teaches Inuktitut to students in Kindergarten and Grade 1, first started teaching in 1972 in Pangnirtung.

After starting her family and moving to Iqaluit, the opportunity to teach again came when Nakasuk School advertised for a classroom assistant.

She has been a teacher at Joamie School since it was built.

Higgins says she promotes the Inuktitut language in her classroom every single day. She said she and her fellow teachers are also interested in promoting the language outside the classroom through daily radio broadcasts.

Though the idea is in the early stages, she said they would read Inuktitut bedtime stories at night or answer questions about culture and language.

Gwen Ohokak of Cambridge Bay received the Inuinnaqtun Language Award for her work on the development of the first Inuinnaqtun dictionary.

Ohokak began producing the dictionary in 1998 with the help of Betty Harnum, a linguist who now lives in Yellowknife, and Michael Kadlun.

The Inuinnaqtun dictionary is 217 pages long and was published last year.

Ohokak said that the most difficult part of this project was coming across terms that are no longer used, or terms the project managers had never heard before.

She said she has been approached by the Kitikmeot Campus of Arctic College to produce a second workbook in Inuinnaqtun.

If she goes ahead with the project, she said she would include more information about word usage and perhaps a pronunciation column.

“Actually, I wasn’t even thinking of receiving an award. There’s so many people that worked on the dictionary. You know, there’s the elders, my fellow Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut [interpreters], colleagues and so many other people out there that helped.”